I’ve heard a number of older relatives mention that if they’re not careful, they might weaken their constitutions by forgetting to eat anything during the day, or just disregarding meal time 'cause they don’t feel like it. That ever happen to you? And if so, why? (do you think)
Personally, I’ve been too lazy to get up and walk to the refrigerator, but that eventually resolves itself so I’d have to answer no.
No, although it happens to one of my brothers. I also know people who lose their appetite when they’re nervous or anxious.
It’s only happened to me a couple of times when I was extremely focused on something, and once I stopped being focused, I went into “ohmygodineedtoeatNOW” mode. I’m more likely to have to remind myself that half an hour before lunch is not the right time to grab a snack.
Yeah, if I forget to eat, that’s most likely how it happened, and I will certainly be starving once I climb up from my hyper-focus zone.
Only other time this has happened to me was during chemo, which had the interesting side-effect of completely breaking my internal hunger mechanism. I didn’t feel hungry. I didn’t feel full either. It was interesting trying to figure out how to eat so I didn’t either starve to death or split open at the seams. Eventually I settled on a schedule, and attempted to gauge visually how much to eat before stopping. Otherwise, I knew I was overdue for food when I became nauseous (real awesome to try to eat when you feel like puking); and I knew I was overdue to stop eating when my stomach started to hurt from being too stretched out.
It seems like such a simple thing, but man did it suck trying to rely on external cues to figure it out.
Sometimes I eat like a snake <"why do I have to eat today? I ate last night, damnit> and other times I eat like a rabbit, which is to say all day long. Days where it’s 2 in the afternoon and I’m not at all hungry, yeah, I usually force SOMEthing down, just so I don’t get a hunger headache.
Then the cycle swings and I eat everything in sight for a couple-few days. That happens a couple times a month; the not wanting to eat until at LEAST early afternon is pretty much daily. These are definite internal cravings that have nothing to do with what I actually eat or stress or anything else. I am female, but I’ve truly not noticed it being tied to my period, though I may be fooling myself. And it balances out; I don’t gain or lose weight, just stay the same.
Yes, I often have to make myself eat. I have a lousy appetite that completely dies at the slightest stress or illness. I don’t get hungry often or at normal times and when I do get hungry, I have to act immediately or the sensation passes within minutes and doesn’t resurface for hours. And I fill up pretty quickly and will sometimes be halfway through my plate and totally lose interest. Frequently I’ll get around to 7pm not having had anything to eat that day. I haven’t eaten breakfast in 10 years. My eating schedule consists pretty much of dinner, usually a late-night snack, and inconsistently something in the afternoon which may or may not qualify as “lunch” depending on when/what/how much it is.
I don’t know why this is. I just have a crummy appetite and I also hate to cook. If it’s something I didn’t prepare myself, chances are I’ll eat more.
Wish I had that problem.
I don’t really like food much, so it happens to me occasionally, but almost always when I’m focussed on something, much as Nava described, only probably as frequently as a couple of times a month. I do tend towards the “eating when I’m hungry, and not when I’m not” style, but I am usually hungry at standard mealtimes so it works out as expected for the most part.
I don’t tend to get hungry but usually I’m happy enough to eat food anyways. Mostly it is an issue only when I’m going to work - if I don’t force myself to eat just before, I can get a rather nasty blood sugar crash near the end of my work rounds: cold sweat, legs feel weak. I’m not old though and I’ve always been like this, even as a little kid. Used to be constantly underweight before I started my current job and accumulated some muscle mass.
Given both my brother and dad have type II diabetes, I guess I should be happy that I’m not inclined to have any overweight issues.
I chose the “none of the above” option, but there have been a few rare times when I’m so involved in a project that I lose track of time and don’t realize I’m hungry until I’m starving. The only times I’ve had to force myself to eat were when I was really sick, like with mono or the flu.
When I’m under stress, as I so often am, I lose my appetite. I may feel empty, but not hungry. This is good in that I don’t have to cook, but I make myself eat whatever food is readily available - fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese, maybe a sandwich. When I’m REALLY under stress, I live on Carnation Instant Breakfast, orange juice, and I make a peanut butter on whole wheat sandwich cut in quarters and FORCE myself to choke down a bit throughout the day. (You’d think I’d be a stick insect by now 
but I alternately either stop eating or eat too much of the wrong thing - potato chips and ice cream, snagging a fast food meal. So it evens out, insofar as weight.)
It only happens rarely. These days, only if I am very involved in a project that has completely captivated my interest. Nothing, nothing has ever captivated my interest to the extent of the gamers who have died while gaming, however. I also used to lose my appetite when i used to fall in love.
Genuinely old (I"m thinking over 80) people often lose appetite, as they often lose the sensation of thirst, and have to remind themselves to eat and drink. Perhaps part of overall loss of sensation?
Not often, but it happens. Like others, I’ll forget if I’m in the zone, and will suddenly realize, “Holy shit, it’s 10 at night and I haven’t eaten since 6:30am,” then will put the nearest by comestible into my face. I also lose my appetite entirely when I’m in a bad mood, so there will occasionally be times when I tell myself, “Hey, you might wanna eat something,” and then make myself eat because I know I should. In the course of a normal day, though, no I don’t forget to eat or have to force myself to. I eat when I’m hungry and/or if someone brings Doritos around.
“Both of the above” - sometimes. Sometimes I forget to eat, especially if I’m caught up in something interesting. And occasionally I’ll be really hungry but unable to think of anything that I actually want to eat, sometimes to the point of nausea; I force down something bland and it usually goes away some time afterwards.
Happens to me all the time, especially was a problem when I lived alone in college. (And hence it happens most often now when Mrs. FtG is away.)
If I get distracted/busy/whatever I might get to 2pm before realizing I haven’t eaten yet. But I’m not hungry. Just aware that there’s no food gurgling inside me. I’d eat, but with little interest, and then I usually have little interest in eating the rest of the day. I don’t “force” myself to eat but it’s sort of monotonous chewing and swallowing.
So when I want to lose some weight, I just keep finding things to keep me distracted. When I find myself going into “browsing mode” in the kitchen, I take that to mean that I need to find something else to do.
No, I have to remind myself *not *to eat, lest I gain weight.
I just realized, or remembered after reading posts, that I have very rarely felt actual hunger, even when I haven’t had food. I worked at a rehab hospital for a few years, and used to bug the CNAs all day long, asking them check my blood pressure and blood sugar. Blood pressure was often so low they couldn’t find it, and blood sugar was almost ALWAYS so low that I regularly got the reaction of “I don’t see how you’re standing up, much less running around working”.
So, it’s possible for me that low blood sugar just doesn’t trigger my brain that it might be important to eat. That doesn’t stop me from going on munching sprees; I do get CRAVINGS, for salt, usually. Get that a LOT. I’ll munch potato chips all day and call it good on occasion, and just licking salt off my hand has been known to curb cravings for something to eat. Maybe ‘cravings’ are really hunger things for me, and they’re just not that strong. I definitely get cravings for dark green foods sometimes, or meat, or something specific probably missing from my diet.
Yeah, I may have broken/trained my poor brain. 
Sometimes I have to remind myself to eat regularly. I’ll never totally forget, but sometimes I’m distracted by something else, and rather than getting food when I start to get hungry, I’ll wait until I’m really starving. And that’s bad news, because I get seriously grumpy when I haven’t had food in a while. That hunger crash will totally negate any progress I might have made by, say, working through lunch, and possibly ruin the rest of my day.
So ideally I’ll have some kind of plan and schedule for regular meals.
Eating bores me and the idea of cooking drives me insane. I’d be perfectly happy to never eat again.
I eat when I get hungry.
I get shaky and weak if I don’t eat. I’ve been told I get very pale. It’s not possible for me to forget.